In his previous life, Shen Xuan was chief engineer at an arms factory. When he opened his eyes, he had become a convict slave registered as an artisan at the Dayin Arsenal. Artisans belonged to the lowest class, and convicts were exiled and forced into the trade. If they failed to deliver military equipment that passed inspection within three years, they would be beaten to death. The foreman tossed him an old wooden token and gave him three days to produce three hundred arrowheads that met the standards. If he failed, he would be beaten to death. This wasn't an assignment. It was a death sentence.
But Shen Xuan had brought his former life's gift for invention with him. He lit a furnace in a heap of scrap and built a foot-drawn crossbow, awakening the [Artisan's Sequence Register] in his mind. He presented the crossbow and drove back the Northern Di cavalry. A public inspection exposed the embezzlement scheme behind the sand mixed into the military supplies. After defending Linshui Fort for seven days, he rose step by step from convict slave to centurion.
The Pei faction at court decided to kill him and retaliated by accusing him of secretly making a banned crossbow in an old case. An official order transferred him to the capital. On the way there, Shen Xuan spotted the flaw in the framing in an illustration attached to the document. From convict slave artisan to pillar of the empire, he relied not on a blade, but on a set of blueprints, a furnace, and hands made for creation.
